The Archaeology of Flowers

——A Poem Cycle of Existence

Volume One: The Glaze of Time

1. White Plum: The Glaze of Time

The first flower is an unfinished porcelain

In the blue of kiln transformation, branches stretch

Like some ancient script no longer recognized—

We once recorded earthquakes with such strokes:

The earth splits, then

Quietly heals itself in white.

War fires die on the boughs, frost and snow buried in scrolls.

A bud is a sealed dossier

Hiding frost of former dynasties

And snow that never melted in my childhood.

When it finally speaks

It utters the language of the future:

All blooming is delayed breaking.

I watch a bee wander into it

Carrying gold

Heavier than any dynasty.

The vibration of its wings

Matches exactly the frequency of the flower’s bloom—

And the echo of my heartbeat, half a beat late.

2. Plum in Rain: The Chronicle of Liquid

Raindrops are the flower’s exoskeleton

A soft petition

Submitted to the liquid world—

Permit me to exist transparently

To be misunderstood

By refraction, gently spared by troubled times.

The stamen is a precise timing device

Yellow gears engaging

The spring’s entire clockwork.

In the folds of petals

Lie smaller petals

Like the infinite recursion

Of a Russian doll, holding

My unspoken, unneeded words.

Rain falls, but the flower learns

To grow in reverse:

Roots stretch toward the sky

Searching for veins of cloud ore.

The flower falls toward the earth

Becoming the inverse prophecy

Of a seed—

And my path back

To ruins and hometown.

3. Red Plum: The Dialectic of Burning

Now fire learns to branch.

Every bloom is an independent

Scene of arson—

Yet no one calls the police,

For ash itself is

The most complete, silent testimony.

Red is the wound of light

The most painful segment

After the spectrum is torn apart.

It is the longing hidden in my bones

Unquenched through separation and desolation.

A bud closes tight

Like an unsent love letter.

Blooming is

The send button finally pressed.

I burn, therefore I am

—A corollary Descartes

Never wrote.

In the grammar of plum blossoms

Existence and fading

Are two tenses

Of the same verb—

And my love and farewell

The same utterance.

4. Twin Blossoms: The Abyss of Symmetry

Two flowers share one stem.

A conjoined twin surgery

In the plant kingdom,

Or an embrace

That lasts a lifetime?

They are mirrors to each other

Yet never coincide.

Like two parallel universes

Exchanging breath

Briefly

On a microscopic scale—

Like me and another self

Passing, never meeting.

The veins of petals

Are variations of fingerprints.

Each points to

A different culprit—

Spring, or time,

Or wandering years,

Or the stranger

Who pressed the shutter,

Or my hand

That refuses to let go.

5. Flower and Emptiness: The Theology of Negative Form

At last, the flower learns

To exist by absence:

You see the branch

Where a flower once was.

Now only

A hollow in the shape of a flower remains.

Wind passes through this shape

Sounding a specific frequency.

The bee understands

But cannot translate it to humans—

Some languages

Can only be spoken

By things that do not exist.

And the blue sky is a greater emptiness:

The blue silence

Left after all flowers

Bloom and fade

At once.

It is also my waiting

Standing still

Without a word—

The only coordinate

When all things are gone.

6. The Flower’s Will (To Future Pollen)

When the last petal falls

It becomes an appeal

To the earth—

I have fought eternity with brevity

Forgotten with fragility

The grammar of nothingness

With fragrance.

And you, flowers of the future,

Shall find in my rotting rhetoric

This unsprouted

Comma.

Spring is not a season.

It is a persistent grammatical error:

We call it Life.

The universe calls it

The temporary curvature of light.

I have bloomed.

That is the hardest

Answer

To all of this.

Volume Two: The Faith of Plants

7. Pine: The Geology of Silence

Roots are downward faith

Driven into rock

Feeding on minerals of darkness.

Annual rings do not record time

Only courage

Regrown each time wind breaks it.

Bark is the earth’s old skin

Cracked, but not shed.

Every line

Is unspoken history.

It does not bloom,

Using silence

Against all rhetoric of flowers.

Snow weighs down

It bends the weight

Into an upward arc.

Death is not the end

But pine needles

Stabbing into winter

One by one

Sober stitches.

8. Bamboo: The Architecture of Void

One section hollow, one solid

Like life

Supported alternately

By blank spaces and burdens.

It does not compete with flowers in splendor

Only weaves wind

Into transparent flute notes.

Nodes are checkpoints of time.

Each breakthrough

Leaves a hard

Memorial.

It bends

Not in surrender

But to make way

For wind and rain.

Split it open

No heart inside

Only void

Running through—

This is its secret

Standing for a thousand years.

9. Lotus: The Metaphysics of Water

Born in mud, yet unstained by it

Like a soul

Passing through the world

Unbought by dust.

Petals are water’s wings

Holding a piece

Of unsinkable moonlight.

The seed pod is a silent abacus

Counting

Gains and losses of the world

But never speaks.

The heart of the seed

Is bitter.

That is its only

True word to the world.

When it fades

It does not fall

Only slowly

Dissolves back into water

As if it never came

Yet as if

It never left.

10. Withered Lotus: The Broken Temple

Summer returns all its glory

To the water’s surface.

Lotus leaves break

Like fallen pillars of a temple

Yet still

Hold the last piece

Of unbowed spirit.

Water ripples are wrinkles of time

Spreading round and round

Over withered roots.

It does not hide

Lays all its ruin

Open to the world—

Imperfection

Is life’s

Most honest face.

The root hides deep in mud

A complete faith

In darkness

Waiting for the next

Cycle of awakening.

11. Wild Grass: The Cosmology of Humility

Unnamed, unpraised

Born in cracks, dying in frost

Yet drives its roots

Into the hardest places of the world.

The universe of wild grass

Is tiny

Small enough only for

A wisp of wind, a drop of rain

An inch of sunlight.

Wildfire has come

Hooves have trampled

Sickles have cut.

Still

It raises its head from ash

In the humblest posture

Writing

The most stubborn survival.

All nobility on earth

Should bow to it—

To live

Is in itself

The noblest medal.

12. Fallen Leaf: The Earth’s Reply

A tree writes all its yearlong thoughts

On leaves.

Wind reads them again and again

Finally sends it

Back to where it began.

Fallen leaves are not farewell

But the earth’s

Received reply.

Every one

Reads:

I came, I loved

I betrayed no time.

It rots, not disappears

But breaks itself

Into nourishment

Returned to roots

To spring

To the endless

Cycle of life.

Volume Three: Light and Dust

13. Moonlight: Silver Rhetoric

The moon does not speak

Only tunes its light

To the softest frequency

Illuminating the world’s

Wounds that dare not speak.

It is the sky’s blank space

Night’s

Silver rhetoric

Spreading longing

Into a field

Of unfrozen frost.

I reach to hold it

Only grasp

A handful of transparent cold.

The warmest farthest things

All carry

Untouchable despair.

14. Falling Snow: The Draft Paper of All Things

The sky freezes all language

Into white

Falling

Covering mountains and rivers, covering wounds.

Snow is an unwritten poem

All things’

Cleanest shape

Before returning to chaos.

It praises not blooming

Only

Quiet covering.

Every snowflake

Is unique

Yet when it lands

Abandons itself.

Snow stops

The world becomes a

Wordless white sheet.

And the plum blossom

Is the first stroke

An unextinguished

Signature.

15. Morning Mist: Blurred Truth

Morning veils the world

Gently with mist.

Truth need not be too clear

Too sharp

Will cut the world.

Distant mountains fade

Rivers fall silent.

All things gain

Soft contours

Like thoughts

Better left unspoken

To be most moving.

When mist lifts

Sunlight slowly reveals the answer.

The truest world

Never shows itself clearly

Only uses tenderness

To embrace all forms.

16. Stars: Punctuation of the Night Sky

Stars are punctuation of the night sky.

Some are commas

Some are periods

Some are

Unfinished ellipses.

They are silent

Yet shine

For all who cannot sleep

Hang

For all unspoken words

Remember

For all distant longings.

The universe is vast

Boundless and endless.

The universe is also tiny

Small enough that one star

Can light up

A whole lonely heart.

17. Wind: Intangible Migration

Wind has no hometown

Spends a lifetime migrating.

Passes through blooming

Passes through falling leaves

Passes through the world’s

Gatherings and partings.

It carries fragrance

Also sighs

Carries splendor

Also ruins

Yet never leaves

Its own trace.

We cannot see wind

Yet feel it

In every tremor—

Like love

Like longing

Like life

Intangible, yet everywhere.

18. Cloud: Exile of the Sky

Clouds are exiles of the sky

Homeless

Drifting with wind

Gathering and scattering

Scattering and gathering.

It returns rain

To the earth

Shadows

To mountains

Hides all the pain of wandering

High above

Invisible heights.

Sometimes it hovers above plum branches

Lingering softly

Afraid to disturb

That one

Brief but unyielding bloom.

Volume Four: Testimony of Life

19. Wound: Soft Armor

All wounds

Are seals stamped by time.

Hurt, cried

After scabbing

Become the hardest places.

Wounds do not speak

Yet remember for me

All experiences

All falls

All strength to rise again.

It is soft armor

Guarding the heart’s

Cleanest place

So that after all vicissitudes

I still choose

To believe warmth, to believe light.

20. Waiting: Silent Epicenter

Waiting is a silent epicenter.

Calm on the surface

Inside already

Earth-shaking.

Waiting for a flower to bloom

Waiting for someone to return

Waiting for snow to fall

Waiting for a belated

Confession.

Time is slow

Slow enough that every second

Is stretched.

Time is also fast

Fast enough that a lifetime

Is quietly spent

In waiting.

21. Farewell: Unfinished Poem

Farewell is not an end

But an

Unfinished poem.

The first line writes meeting

The second

Left for time to continue.

Some farewells are silent

Some farewells hold tears

Some farewells

One turn

Is a lifetime.

But no regret

All departures

Are existence in another form.

Like flowers falling into mud

Like stars sinking into sea

Like love

Hidden in heart, never fading.

22. Longing: Breaths Across Space

Longing is breath across space.

You cannot see it

Yet clearly feel it

Rising and falling

Softly in blood.

It crosses mountains and seas

Crosses day and night

Crosses years

Falling where you

Once stayed.

When plums bloom

It is fragrance

When moonlight falls

It is cool

When wind passes

It is a soft call

Heard by no one.

23. Loneliness: Abyss of the Self

Loneliness is the abyss of the self.

Jump in

Only then see

The truest you.

Do not fear loneliness.

It is the soul’s

Best practice.

Let you hear inner voice

Beyond noise.

Like a plum

Blooming alone in cold winter

Like a star

Shining alone in night sky.

Loneliness to the extreme

Blends with

The universe.

24. I Have Bloomed: The Answer of Existence

In the name of flowers

I walk the long river of time.

Using brevity

Against eternity

Using fragility

Against oblivion.

I have stood in frost and snow

Bloomed in wind and rain

Reborn from ash

Left traces of existence

In emptiness.

No need to ask for meaning.

The whole answer of life

Is only one sentence:

I have bloomed.

This is

To the universe

The hardest, tenderest

Eternal

Answer.